Mortal Sins — Penn Williamson

"In New Orleans the past is no decaying memory.... It is the sins of your father, mother, and their mothers and fathers before them--la final/1e that are most remembered, not any blessings bestowed...."

The year is 1927, a time for bootleg gin, hot jazz, and sudden death. The place is a city that inters its dead above ground but keeps its secrets deeply buried. Here, on a hot summer night, inside an old slave shack, native son and seasoned homicide cop Daman Rourke discovers prominent attorney Charles St. Clair brutally stabbed to death. Close by are a glass of absinthe laced with cocaine and, covered in her husband's blood, Remy Lelourie--Hollywood goddess and the woman who once broke Rourke's heart. Against all the visible evidence, he embarks on a quest into the city's dark, hidden crevices to prove Remy's innocence. What he'll find will be the truth, about not only a scandalous society murder but the last unscarred corner of his soul.